Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/568



a book portraying the sins and agonies of great cities. Only portions of the poem could be printed in a work intended for general circulation in English; but even of these passages the editor will venture the assertion that never before has the horror of prostitution been so packed into human speech)

Hard by the docks, soon as the shadows fold The dizzy mansion-fronts that soar aloft, When eyes of lamps are burning soft, The shy, dark quarter lights again its old Allurement of red vice and gold.

Women, blocks of heaped, blown meat, Stand on low thresholds down the narrow street, Calling to every man that passes; Behind them, at the end of corridors, Shine fires, a curtain stirs And gives a glimpse of masses Of mad and naked flesh in looking-glasses. Hard by the docks The street upon the left is ended by A tangle of high masts and shrouds that blocks A sheet of sky; Upon the right a net of grovelling alleys Falls from the town—and here the black crowd rallies And reels to rotten revelry.

It is the flabby, fulsome butcher's stall of luxury, Time out of mind erected on the frontiers Of the city and the sea.

Far-sailing melancholy mariners Who, wet with spray, thru grey mists peer, Cabin-boys cradled among the rigging, and they who steer